WANTED: BLADES To V Poem by Milorad Stojević

To Vesna, for fun



I have bought a sheep. White, some spots, like
A Dalmatian mongrel on walkabout in the by-ways
Around the Capital. I have bought a sheep for
One hundred bucks. What am I to do, though? Those
Tycoons angels in the Duty-Frees are out of altars. What

Am I to do though? I am not that Samaritan father.
From me winds howl yet blood streams not after
Choirs have sung their lullabies to the dead.
I shan't comment on what may transpire. But, as
All fear the heart, even in the desert and on Highway 74
(in those contraptions which run on
Soaps and no more) - I feel like milk in barrels of
Mulberry wood. Tigers' skins over dried hay,

Then when we were with those actors and
Actresses at the foot of our fond Kilimanjaro.
Contriving new recitatives on the moral of the
Human species and lust in beds of thorn and straw.

Enveloped by mosquito nets we will decide
In the morning, me more and you less, to buy blades
For that sheep's throat.
The vixens, incidentally, concur
About you. Still, I am no vixen needing a miracle
To walk about your Petrarchian garden.
(As I said once already.)

The screen is already set up there and the show can
Start when you sign imperceptibly to the shadow
That ravages the Swedish table still unprepared
Beneath the plane tree.

There where we tasted siestas after smoked mutton,
Pickled cabbage, and the little wine that was left to us
After all our loveliest vineyards had been burned.